Quadrantids 2013: visual data quicklook

Introduction

This page shows automated results of the Quadrantids 2013,
based on visual observations reported by citizen scientists through the report form of the International Meteor Organization (IMO).
The information on this page is generated automatically; for scientific use
please refer to manual analyses published in scientific journals (such as WGN).
Send your feedback regarding this page to Geert Barentsen.

Note that the data will finally go into the Visual Meteor Database (VMDB) with manual inspection and rectifications. We are curretly completing the files of 2008-2011. The VMDB is an enormous project - any help will be greatly appreciated.

Page generated: 2013 May 6 at 11:45 UTC.

Activity profile

The graph below shows the ZHR (Zenithal Hourly Rate), which is the number of meteors an observer would see under a very dark sky with the radiant of the shower in zenith.
ZHRmax = 137 based on 324 Quadrantids reported in 62 intervals, assuming population index r = 2.1

Time (UTC)

Solarlon

nINT

nQUA

ZHR

Particle density

2013-01-02 20:05

282.421

2

12

55

±15

94 / 109·km3

2013-01-03 10:20

283.026

2

11

137

±40

234 / 109·km3

2013-01-03 11:25

283.072

3

27

101

±19

172 / 109·km3

2013-01-03 12:41

283.126

4

37

73

±12

124 / 109·km3

2013-01-03 13:44

283.171

7

77

97

±11

165 / 109·km3

2013-01-03 17:19

283.323

4

12

70

±19

119 / 109·km3

2013-01-03 18:22

283.367

4

15

68

±17

116 / 109·km3

2013-01-03 19:29

283.415

6

34

96

±16

164 / 109·km3

2013-01-03 20:25

283.455

7

47

129

±19

220 / 109·km3

2013-01-03 21:36

283.505

4

19

74

±17

126 / 109·km3

2013-01-03 22:11

283.530

2

12

70

±19

119 / 109·km3

2013-01-04 00:03

283.609

1

8

55

±18

94 / 109·km3

2013-01-05 18:39

285.418

1

0

31

±31

53 / 109·km3

2013-01-05 20:22

285.491

13

10

11

±3

19 / 109·km3

2013-01-06 01:21

285.702

2

3

4

±2

7 / 109·km3

The reported intervals are automatically added together into the bins shown above, based on the number of meteors and the distribution of the intervals. For each bin, the following parameters are computed:

Time is the averaged centre of the reported intervals in Universal Time (UTC);

Solarlon is the astronomical position of the earth relative to the sun at the above time (equinox J2000.0);

nINT is the number of reported intervals used;

nQUA is the number of Quadrantids observed in those intervals;

ZHR is the Zenithal Hourly Rate, defined as (1 + sum nQUA) / sum(Teff/C) where Teff is the effective observing time and C is the total correction coefficient for limiting magnitude, clouds and zenith correction 1/sin(hR);

Particle density is the approximate number of particles (meteoroids) causing meteors brighter than magnitude +6.5 per billion cubic kilometer (i.e., a cube with 1000 km edge length).
The ZHR depends on this density (which can be variable) and the velocity (which is roughly constant) of the meteoroid stream. For more information about the computation method, see the references at the bottom.

Observer statistics

Data has been received from 20 observers in 10 countries. Thank you for your efforts!